A man who was allegedly bludgeoned by his roommate while he slept has told a court he thought he was dreaming until he woke up in blinding pain.
Kevin Arden, 28, is standing trial in the NSW District Court accused of drugging and attempting to beat to death his “best friend” Harry Sumantri with a hammer, to whom he allegedly owed a $52,000 debt.
Mr Arden has pleaded not guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent to murder over the May 2020 alleged attack inside their Sydney CBD apartment on Day Street.
The alleged debt
Prosecutors have told the court the pair had been fighting over a $52,000 debt, which Mr Arden borrowed from his friend to invest in a hand sanitiser business, where he would purchase the product in bulk and sell it at a higher price for a profit.
Mr Sumantri took to the stand to give evidence on Thursday, where he said he had only formed a friendship with Mr Arden when he moved into the packed two-bedroom apartment.
“During the lockdown we were more close, we were jobless had no work and had to stay home,” he explained.
During his testimony, the court heard Mr Arden asked Mr Sumantri for money several times, to which his friend graciously loaned him the money.
“At the time we were trying to make money because we were jobless and Kevin was trying to make a business,” Mr Sumantri said.
“He said the money had to be quick because people were fighting over the goods … we organised for 20-30 per cent of the profit to come to me.”
Mr Sumantri said he provided $30,000 through bank transfer over two or three payments but the court heard he had also leant his friend money previously to tackle gambling payments and as currency exchange to Indonesian Rupiah.
After multiple weeks of asking for the money back tensions between the friends began to grow, the court heard.
Mr Sumantri said his friend would promise a date to pay him back and continuously come up with excuses.
“Finally, one day before the incident he said his mum was at the bank and she had signed for the money to be transferred to me,” Mr Sumantri said.
“He said it would be in the bank by 6pm the day before the incident.”
The alleged attack
The following day, the pair were sitting together on the balcony at about 3pm before Mr Arden went inside to make his friend a coffee, the court heard.
According to the crown case, Mr Arden had spiked his friend’s ginger drink with doxylamine, an over the counter sleeping pill.
Mr Sumantri said he thanked his friend for the drink and sipped on it, despite not liking it, because it was the “polite” thing to do out of respect.
He suddenly became tired and decided to go inside to his room, where he lay on his mattress and played on his iPad before falling asleep.
“I had woken up that day at 12pm so there was no way I should have been sleeping again … but I put the iPad down and went to sleep,” Mr Sumantri said.
All of a sudden he realised it was dark and he found it difficult to move.
Then he realised he was being bludgeoned to the head with a “hard object”.
“I thought it was a dream but with each hit I realised oh it’s not a dream, it’s real,” Mr Sumantri said.
Mr Sumantri said the room was dark when he woke up and he scrambled around the room trying to get away from the alleged attacker, but he couldn’t leave the room because he was being blocked.
“All I was thinking was I wanted to get out of there because I was afraid, I didn’t know who it was,” he said.
“He wasn’t letting me out, he pushed me … I turned the light switch on and it was Kevin Arden in front of me.”
The court heard the pair struggled as Mr Sumantri attempted to get past his friend, pushing him away.
He asked Mr Arden “what is wrong with you?” before telling him to “calm down”.
Mr Sumantri continued to yell and got into a “tug of war” over the door before another housemate finally called the police.
When police arrived
The jury was played footage from a body-worn camera, showing the moment police officers arrived at the apartment and found Mr Sumantri bleeding out in a makeshift bedroom in the living room.
In the video, Constable Gordon Rutter found Mr Arden laying on the floor of the balcony on his back with his phone on his chest while blood can be seen sprayed on a bedroom wall.
Constable Rutter introduced himself to Mr Arden and asked if he was OK, to which he replied that he felt “dizzy”.
“I find the knife … I fight with a knife and hammer,” he slurred in the video.
Meanwhile, Constable Teegan Bennett told the court she found Mr Sumantri behind a curtain with blood all over him.
“I provided first aid to him by ensuring he stayed awake and away from other people in the unit,” Constable Bennett said.
When she asked Mr Sumantri what happened, he said he had been sleeping and was unsure but he was hit on the head 20 times.
“He said it was his roommate and he said ‘I don’t know why it happened but he owes me $52,000’,” she told the court.
“When speaking with him I observed him to suddenly stop speaking and become unresponsive three times, his eyes rolled backwards and he struggled to keep his head up.
“He lost consciousness.”
Mr Sumantri was in a daze as he explained to Constable Bennett how he was being hit with “hxjmtzyward stuff more than ten times”.
The trial continues.
